{"id":33009,"date":"2020-11-01T14:35:01","date_gmt":"2020-11-01T19:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=33009"},"modified":"2024-07-09T14:43:15","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T18:43:15","slug":"stories-from-the-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/stories-from-the-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories from the Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

THREE OPERA STARS PRESS ONWARD<\/h2>\n

Elizabeth Bishop\u00a0\u201989\u00a0<\/strong>calls it \u201cthe stillness.\u201d More than seven months of performances were canceled because of COVID-19, so the mezzo-soprano, who is on the roster at the Metropolitan Opera, is teaching remotely at Juilliard and exploring how to contribute to the opera world in ways other than singing when normal life returns.<\/p>\n

Bishop and other music alumnae,\u00a0Alicia Russell \u201916<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0and\u00a0Jacquelyn Stucker \u201911<\/strong>,\u00a0have all searched their artist souls<\/a>\u00a0for ways to make the most of this involuntary downtime.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Bishop \u201989<\/strong>
\nPhoto: Madeleine Gray<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Alicia Russell \u201916<\/strong>
\nPhoto: Eric Kephart<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jacquelyn Stucker \u201911<\/strong>
\nPhoto: Jonathan Nesteruk<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

William \u201921, Samuel \u201915 and James Douglas \u201917<\/p>\n

SUPPLY CHAIN SOLDIERS<\/h2>\n

For some, the pandemic\u00a0drew family members together<\/a>\u00a0to answer our communities\u2019 sudden immense needs. Brothers\u00a0Samuel \u201915<\/strong>,\u00a0James \u201917\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0William Douglas \u201921,\u00a0<\/strong>based in Rome, Georgia, delivered tens of thousands of pieces of personal protection equipment to those in need. In Travelers Rest, South Carolina, father and son\u00a0Randy \u201971<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Ivan Mathena \u201908<\/strong>\u00a0produced and distributed masks.\u00a0Heath Hawkins \u201920<\/strong>\u00a0was an intern\u00a0before becoming an employee<\/a>\u00a0for a company that manufactures materials that mimic human tissue for medical training, when the company decided to make face shields to help halt the virus\u2019s spread.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Chris Jentz \u201994<\/p>\n

THE BIG QUESTIONS<\/h2>\n

Furman alumni are racing to unravel the mystery of COVID-19.\u00a0Chris\u00a0Jentz\u00a0\u201994<\/strong>, principal consultant at Kaiser Permanente, and his team produced forecast models to help Kaiser Permanente hospitals prepare for anticipated surges in inpatient admissions.\u00a0In May, his research about COVID-19 patients in the United States\u2019 West Coast was published in the British Medical Journal. The article evaluated\u00a0the spread of COVID-19 related hospitalizations and deaths and\u00a0gave early indications that the virus\u00a0was having\u00a0a more profoundly negative impact in the United States compared to China.<\/p>\n

LIFESAVING CARE<\/h2>\n

When\u00a0Anna Downs \u201916<\/strong>\u00a0tested positive for the virus in March, she was two months away from graduating medical school at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.\u00a0Her open letter to the nurses who cared for her\u00a0brought us<\/a>\u00a0(and\u00a0Today Show viewers and readers<\/a>) into what she called \u201cprobably the most difficult experience of my life.\u201d That same ordeal is one that\u00a0Ben Daxon \u201905<\/strong>\u00a0helped countless patients through as a staff physician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he specializes in critical care and anesthesia. Both he and\u00a0Jonathan Davis \u201905<\/strong>, an emergency department physician in Augusta, Georgia,\u00a0volunteered at hospitals in New York City<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Anna Downs \u201916<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ben Daxon \u201905<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jonathan Davis \u201905<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Furman alumni across disciplines are experiencing the pandemic in unique, personal ways. They have shown their resilience, whether by staying flexible within their professions or by stepping into the crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":33011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2893,2892,1963],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-around-the-lake-fall-2020","category-fall-2020","category-furman-magazine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33009"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33014,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33009\/revisions\/33014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}